1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a navigation device mounted in a vehicle, for example, which performs route guidance, and a facility image display method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A navigation device displays a map image of the area around the position of a vehicle including the navigation device, during route guidance, for example, to a destination. In some cases, an icon image corresponding to a facility is superimposed on the map image at a predetermined position of the facility, such as a gas station or a restaurant. The icon image corresponding to the facility being displayed in this manner allows the driver to easily recognize which type of facility is located at a particular place (patent documents: JP-A No. 2006-113047, JP-A No. 2000-136937, JP-A No. 1997-119839, for example).
A conventional icon image corresponding to a facility limits the information about the facility that a user can recognize from the icon image. The icon image corresponding to a gas station, for example, may either correspond to a brand of the gas station or to types of fuel provided by the gas station. Accordingly, the user can only recognize the brand of the gas station from the icon image corresponding to the brand; and the user can only recognize the types of fuel provided by the gas station from the icon image corresponding to the types of fuel.
During route guidance, for example, since the user needs a landmark facility in making a right or left turn, the user wants to know the brand of the gas station. On the other hand, during a facility search, the user wants to know the types of fuel provided by the gas station rather than the brand. Thus, the relevant information about the facility changes depending on the situation. Accordingly, it is desirable that the user can recognize various types of information about a facility from the icon image corresponding to the facility.